


A Quiet Moment

by Moons_of_Avalon



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Feels, Dorks in Love, Fluff, M/M, Past Abuse, Post-Coital Cuddling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 07:01:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5119376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moons_of_Avalon/pseuds/Moons_of_Avalon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Bucky share a moment together late one night, and remind themselves just how important each of them is to the other, even after all this time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Quiet Moment

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my tumblr about a month ago, but I've finally made some revisions and am introducing it to AO3!

“Can you feel it?” 

Steve’s question is soft, so soft that Bucky probably would’ve missed it if he’d been even a few feet from his best friend. His lover now, he supposes, though best friend will probably always come first in his mind. He’s propped up on his side, looking down at Steve, who’s sprawled out on his back, still very flushed and warm from their intimacy just a short while earlier. He glances to where Steve’s fingers are gliding ever so gently over his metal wrist, his fingernails catching between the grooves so a faint _tik tik tik_ emerges in the quiet.

“Yeah, I can feel it,” he replies, watching his index finger glint in the low light as it skates along Steve’s collarbone. The blond shifts slightly under his touch, trying to hide the shiver that runs through his body. Bucky notices anyway and chuckles softly as he leans to place a kiss on Steve’s cheek. “I can’t feel everything though…no chills, no pain…”

“That’s not so bad,” Steve shrugs, tipping his head so that Bucky’s lips brush against his own. Neither of them ever thinks to pull back. “Everything important though, you can feel that?”

“Define important,” Bucky muses, smiling as he ghosts his fingertip over the hollow of Steve’s throat, watching blond eyelashes flutter in response. “I can feel how soft your skin is, like silk or something.” Steve rolls his eyes at that and shakes his head, and Bucky has to laugh at himself a little. Steve’s never been good at accepting compliments, and he was laying it on pretty thick. That’s not going to stop him though. “I can feel how hard all that muscle is,” he continues, nuzzling against Steve’s neck as he let’s his hand drift down Steve’s body to rest on the well-defined abdominals that flex instinctively under his hand. “Built like a tank but soft like a dame, how does he do it?”

“You are so full of shit,” Steve laughs, shoving playfully at Bucky’s chest as he tried to duck away from the kisses that are tickling his neck. A gentle bite to his ear is all that it takes to make him stop squirming.

“And I can also feel how hot you get when I tell you how good you look.” Bucky’s words are nearly lost against Steve’s skin as he continues to tease it with little kisses. But the heat that flares under his hand is enough to let him know that he was heard. “That blush still goes all the way down, huh, Stevie?”

“I will kick you out, you know. This is still technically my bedroom, you can head right back across the hall to your own.”

“You’d really kick me out after how good I just finished treating you?”

“You bet I would.”

“Bullshit,”Bucky mutters just seconds before his lips find Steve’s, cutting off anymore protests. Steve melts right into it, though Bucky can feel that his smile never quite fades. Good. Steve should always be smiling, as far as he’s concerned. A face like that wasn’t meant to frown. 

“It doesn’t bother you, right?” he murmurs as he breaks the kiss, and Steve, bless him, actually looks confused.

“What do you mean?”

“The arm…” Bucky trails off, shrugging his metal shoulder and listening to the plates shift and click back into place. Steve’s listening too, watching actually, his eyes crawling up and down before returning to Bucky’s face.

“Why would your arm bother me?”

“Well it’s metal for starters…”

“And?”

They stare at each other for a moment, both waiting for an answer that doesn’t come. But when Bucky sees the shift in Steve’s eyes from confusion to concern, he has to look away.

“It doesn’t bother _you_ , right?”

Bucky’s flesh hand clenches where it rests next to Steve’s head, but the blond doesn’t flinch, his own hands curling around Bucky’s body and resting on his upper back, warm and solid as he pulls Bucky closer.

“Bucky, look at me…” he coaxes, waiting until Bucky’s eyes reluctantly shift back to his face before continuing. “If you need to talk to me about this, you can. You know that, don’t you?”

“Steve, it’s nothing…”

“It’s clearly not nothing.” Steve presses, but falls quiet after that, letting those big blue eyes do all the talking for him as they flick back and forth. Bucky can’t say no to that kind of urging for very long.

“It doesn’t _bother_ me…” he starts off. “Not really anyway, not anymore…”

“But it used to?”

“Well yeah,” Bucky says like it’s obvious. It is obvious, or at least it should be. Apparently it isn’t though, if the way Steve’s eyebrows are knitting together is any indication. “It’s just that…I never asked to have this, you know?” he finally forces out. He can’t bring himself to look at Steve as he says it. “I never asked anybody to shoot me full of metal, make me into some fucking cyborg so they could program me into the perfect little weapon…”

He feels Steve’s hand in his hair, as if trying to smooth away his upset. He pulls back, sitting up and letting his hands fall into his lap with a heavy sigh. The contrast is too much as he spreads his fingers and flexes his palms, metallic plates sliding and whirring juxtaposed to simple stretch of flesh and bone. The metal feels heavier sometimes than others.

“Buck?” Steve’s voice is soft against his skin as he leans in close enough to rest his cheek on Bucky’s shoulder. When he doesn’t get a response, he reaches out and grips onto Bucky’s left hand. “Bucky, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” he asks petulantly.

“Don’t do that thing where you get lost in all the shit your brain’s trying to bury you in,” Steve sighs, and Bucky has to laugh softly, humorlessly. “I know the look, I’ve seen it in the mirror.”

At that Bucky’s eyes slip closed, pained, and he tilts his head so his cheek nuzzles against Steve’s hair. As if on instinct, Steve curls himself closer to Bucky’s side. For several moments, they’re just quiet, listening to each other’s breath. It’s such a simple reminder of _I’m here, I’m with you, I’m alive,_ but it’s one they’ve known the significance of since they were kids, when Bucky would count the seconds on each of Steve’s breaths when he was sick, listening for any warning hitch, and Steve would listen to the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest in return, matching the rhythm as best he could. 

Bucky feels Steve’s fingers gliding across his wrist again, and shifts his arm to grasp the wandering hand instead, bringing it up to his mouth to kiss each finger lightly before cupping them against his chest. Steve shifts to place a kiss on Bucky’s shoulder in reply.

“I guess I never really thought about it that way,” Steve murmurs, finally breaking the silence. “That the arm was something that you weren’t given a choice about. I knew it, but I never really thought about it.” Bucky can feel a melancholy smile form on the lips that are still brushing his shoulder. “I’ve always just thought of it as a part of you. A new part, but still a part of you.”

Bucky has a little smile to match Steve’s now, and turns to press a kiss to the top of that blond head, breathing in the soft smell of his hair. “Well at least one of us never thought I was some cybernetic freak.”

Steve sighs, but there’s a bright tinge to the sound that tells Bucky it could’ve been a laugh with a little more prompting. “Well you’re not getting away from cybernetic,” he murmurs, glancing up at Bucky. “As for freak…you’re no more a freak than I am.”

“You’re not a freak.”

“Well, I’m not normal, pretty sure I never was. And I don’t mind that anymore.” Steve chuckles softly before shrugging. “I gave up on normal, maybe being a freak is underrated.”

Bucky keeps a straight face for a full three seconds before it cracks into a grin.

“And you have the nerve to say I’m full of shit.” 

And then they’re both laughing, Bucky tossing his head back as Steve buries his face into his chest, holding onto each other as they shake the bed.

“I never said I wasn’t,” he manages to choke out in his defense. Bucky just shakes his head before taking Steve’s face in his hands and kissing him as best he can when neither of them can stop smiling and giggling like kids. God, when was they last time they got to laugh like this?

By the time they’ve caught their breath, Steve’s got Bucky on top of him again, slotted between his legs so they’re chest to chest. His cheeks are pink from laughing and his eyes are shining at Bucky like he’s the damn sun. Bucky can’t imagine a time when he won’t feel his breath catch in his throat seeing Steve like this, so utterly relaxed and trusting. He’s always had so many walls up; Bucky can remember being able to see through them, but can’t ever recall seeing them come down.

“Is it ever weird? Having to take care of me, when I used to be the one who had to help take care of you?” he murmurs as he laces his fingers with Steve’s. Steve gently squeezes his hands as he sighs, glancing down and letting the corners of his mouth curl up in that sweet, self-deprecating way that Bucky’s so familiar with, and so fond of.

“You say that as if I don’t need you to take care of me anymore…”

The impact makes Bucky freeze for a few seconds. His lips part, but no sound comes out except a shaky breath. How can he respond to that? And more importantly, how could he have forgotten…

Steve’s eyes shift to his own but dart away again quickly, and Bucky can see in the heat that creeps down his neck and in the way he opens his mouth to wet his lips that Steve’s trying to find a way to backpedal; that he thinks he’s said to much.

“Don’t,” he whispers and gives Steve just a moment to turn to look at him before leaning down to kiss him again. It’s soft this time and Bucky feels the tension drain from Steve’s body, little by little with each touch and glide of lips and tongue. It’s the sort of kiss they can lose themselves in for hours, no need to push for more, and no need to slow down for breath. Just easy, easy the way things would always be in a perfect world.

Bucky’s arms find their way around Steve’s body as he breaks the kiss, sighing softly as he rests his forehead against Steve’s. When he opens his eyes, he finds that Steve’s already looking back at him.

“Using my own words against me, huh?”

“Somebody’s got to make you take your own advice,” Bucky smiles, and Steve laughs softly, rolling his eyes. But they come back to rest on Bucky’s face, as warm and content as they deserve to always be. “I love you, Stevie,” he adds softly. “And I’ll always take care of you, it’s not in my makeup to do anything else.”

“I know, Buck,” Steve nods, running his fingers through Bucky’s hair as he leans up to kiss away the furrow on his brow. “And I love you too.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on tumblr at moonsofavalon.tumblr.com!


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